Chapter 774
Chapter 774:
They burst out the front doors onto the Strip just as the ground beneath the Phantom Casino buckled. A muffled boom echoed from deep underground. Smoke poured from the vents.
They stood on the sidewalk, gasping for air. Skye’s wedding dress was ruined, stained with grease and soot. Liam’s tux was torn.
But Skye held the drive up. It glinted in the neon lights.
“We got him,” Skye whispered. “We have the ledger. We know where the Architect is p>
Liam pulled her into a hug, lifting her off her feet. He buried his face in her neck. “We did it,” he breathed.
A black SUV screeched to a halt in front of them. The window rolled down. It was Victoria.
“Get in, you idiots!” she yelled. “Before the cops get here p>
They piled into the car. As they sped away, Skye looked back at the smoking casino.
“Where does the money lead?” Alistair asked from the front seat.
Skye plugged the drive into her laptop. She ran the trace.
A map popped up. A single red dot pulsing on the screen.
“It’s not a bunker,” Skye said, her eyes widening. “It’s not a fortress p>
“Where is it?” Liam asked.
Skye looked at him, her face pale.
“It’s the old Sterling Summer Home,” she whispered. “The place where you left me alone for a week after our wedding. The place where our marriage started to die p>
Liam went cold. “The place I abandoned you. He’s been waiting for us in the wreckage of our past p>
“Then let’s go end it,” Liam said, his hand finding hers.
The car sped into the desert night, leaving the lights of Vegas behind.
𝖱e𝗰𝘰𝘮𝘮𝗲𝘯𝗱 bе𝗅ո𝘰𝘷𝘦lѕ.𝖼om 𝗍о у𝘰𝗎𝗿 𝘧r𝗶𝖾𝗇d𝘴
The final game had begun.
The sun over Las Vegas didn’t rise; it exploded. But not in the sky—it erupted from the ground behind us in a plume of smoke and fire. The shockwave from the Phantom Casino’s vault rattled the windows of the black SUV as we sped away from the chaos, leaving the neon skyline in a cloud of dust.
I sat in the backseat, my breath coming in shallow gasps, tracing the line of my jaw where soot had settled. The adrenaline was a physical weight in my chest—heavy and suffocating.
I was running. Again.
But this time, the reflection staring back from the rearview mirror wasn’t the terrified girl who had walked down the aisle toward Liam Kensington five years ago. That girl was dead—buried under layers of betrayal, resurrected by vengeance, and hardened by the fire of the last few months. The woman in the mirror wore a wedding dress torn at the hem, stained with grease and ash, her eyes dark with a history that felt too heavy for one lifetime.
“Stop dissecting the explosion,” Alistair said, his voice cutting through the silence of the cabin. He sat in the passenger seat, checking the magazine of his sidearm. “You look like a queen who just burned down the kingdom, not a fugitive p>
“Is there a difference?” I murmured, turning away from the burning horizon.